


In Dreams

by elfin



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 03:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18065888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: Following the end of the world that wasn't, Crowley and Aziraphale find themselves sharing their dreams, quite literally. (Fluff, really.)





	In Dreams

Azirapale dreamt. 

That in itself was unusual. But to dream of hell, or of the entrance to hell, and to dream of his friend, whom he definitely didn’t like but all the same didn’t want to lose, being dragged into the gaping void, his hand outstretched to him, his pleas for him to help, was unheard of. 

He woke with a start, launched himself from the armchair - knocking the ever-so expensive wine in his rush to get to the telephone - and was halfway through dialling Crowley’s number when sense prevailed and he slowly put the receiver back in its cradle. 

It was just a dream, he told himself firmly. A nightmare at worst. It was some unGodly hour of the night, still black outside. Crowley would be doing... whatever it was that demons did in the dark hours. Although, when it came to Crowley, he was probably sleeping. And unlike Aziraphale he did it properly, in a massive bed with a luxurious mattress, duck down duvet and feather pillows, black satin sheets. Alone. The angel assumed he did it alone. He’d never really shown an interest in finding a companion when it came to the bedroom. 

He stood for an unnecessarily long time, his hand still hovering over the Bakerlite phone, musing on what it would be like to be in Crowley’s bed with him. He stood there for so long, in fact, that when the phone rang, he jumped a foot in the air and two feet back.

He managed to keep himself from swearing. Managed to keep it to a breathy, ‘Oh!’ and picked up the receiver.

‘Stop thinking about me.’

Aziraphale was taken aback momentarily before immediately choosing to feign innocence. It was, after all, one of his strengths. ‘I wasn’t.’ 

‘You were. I can feel it.’ Crowley sounded rather tired and only slightly annoyed. 

‘How can you possibly feel it?’

‘I don’t know. Ever since... that day, at the airbase. I’ve been... aware of you.’

‘You’re making it up!’

There was a long sigh. ‘You’ve just had a nightmare about me being dragged to Hell.’

‘How could you possibly know that?!’

‘Because I had the same one. I think it was the same dream. I think you woke us up from it.’

‘How can I wake you from your dream?’

‘Like I said, it was the same.... Never mind. We need to talk. Brunch tomorrow. That little cafe in Liberty. No one ever goes in there before nine. I’ll see you at eight. And do me a favour, don’t go back to bed.’

‘But Liberty doesn’t open until....’ He was talking to himself. The line was dead.

~

The waitress looked confused. The doorman had looked confused. No doubt the chef was wearing the same expression, all of them wondering what they were doing at work an hour earlier than usual and why no one had questioned them being there. 

‘I thought we’d agreed not to do this anymore,’ Aziraphale muttered, but only after giving his order of freshly squeezed orange juice, a pot of earl grey and Eggs Benedict to the bemused waitress who’s name was Pamela, according to her name tag. 

Crowley ordered a large pot of strong coffee. ‘Desperate times.’ It was all Crowley would say until he had a cup of the stuff inside him. It was still boiling hot. ‘Do you remember, at the airbase, Adam said something to us, something about knowing us.’

Aziraphale stirred the pot of tea and nodded, ‘He said he knew who we were and that we would be all right.’

‘Why did he say that?’

‘Well, I took it to mean that he knew we tried our level best on both sides, and that he’d have a word with his Father about you, while at the same time putting in a good word for me with my lot to make sure neither of us was de-winged and tarred for our efforts. And given that I haven’t heard a peep out of Gabriel or any of the thong since then, I’m cautiously optimistic that he kept his word.’ He looked up. Crowley was staring at him. He could see the golden serpentine gaze behind the shade of his glasses. ‘My dear, what is the matter? Have you heard from your side? They’re not threatening retribution, anything like that?’

Crowley shook his head and emptied a second cup. He poured a third and the pot refilled itself without the need for verbal threats.

‘Something’s... different. Can’t you feel it?’ He asked in a way that suggested Aziraphale should feel it, and it pained the angel to shake his head. 

‘I’m sorry. I mean, I can feel an easing of tensions. I’m aware of a void where the Great Plan once was.’ It felt like being in a car on the side of the road, staring at a map and not having the faintest clue where they were. Only on a much bigger scale. ‘And then there’s that general sense of embarrassment. Is that what you’re referring to?’

‘No!’ 

‘Then what? Do just spit it out, dear fellow. You’re in knots.’

‘You! I have... more than a general sense of you.’

Aziraphale stared at him, oblivious. Pamela brought his breakfast. He waited until she’d gone before asking, ‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘Last night...’

‘Yes! I meant to ask you, how did you know I’d had that nightmare?’

‘Because I had the exact same one.’

‘Oh,’ he felt for Crowley, he really did. ‘Hardly surprising, given the stress of the last few years.’

‘No, you’re not listening. I mean I had the same nightmare as you. I was there, with you. I watched you, screaming, as they dragged me back to Hell. I woke up at the same time you did.’

Aziraphale considered that. ‘It’s going to be a common theme for us, though, isn’t?’ 

Crowley sighed out a loud expletive and dropped his forehead to the tabletop. The angel put a hesitant hand on his head and stroked his hair, just the once. Or he meant to just do it the once. He hadn’t realised how luscious the red hair was until that moment. Centuries, millennia of not stroking it....

‘What are you doing?’ The demon’s voice was muffled by his arms but the question was clear enough. Aziraphale snatched his hand back and picked up his knife and fork. 

‘Are you sure you won’t eat? You did make this place open early deliberately. And you know their eggs are simply divine.’

‘Not hungry,’ came the muted response. Aziraphale had finished eating by the time Crowley lifted his head. He reached for his coffee. ‘I’ll show you. Tonight. You’ll see what I mean.’

‘All right.’ Sometimes it was easier just to agree. 

~

Since he’d discovered the luxury of sleep, Crowley had experienced the same dream at random times over the many, many years. But this time, it was different. He was back at the beginning, sitting with Aziraphale in the garden. But this time they were watching Adam and Eve copulate in the long grass. The sun was high in the sky and he could feel the heat of it on his skin.

At the very moment Adam reached his loud climax, Crowley - Crawly as he was then - pushed his hands through the grass behind him and dropped his head back to look up at the cloudless blue sky. ‘Will there ever be a more beautiful day?’ 

‘There will be many, my dear, I’m sure of it.’

Crowley looked over at the angel, staring at the way the sunlight made his hair look like spun gold. Resting all his weight on one arm, he reached up and pushed his fingers into it, marvelling at the way it felt, soft between his fingers. Aziraphale’s head snapped up, predictably, but instead of the scolding he expected, the angel smiled. 

The words, ‘You’re lovely,’ slipped from his lips the way they never would when he was awake, and Aziraphale seemed to shine. 

‘And you, my dear one, are glorious.’

Crowley sat up as Aziraphale leaned into him. The idea of kissing an angel, his angel, soared through Crowley like fire, licking across his skin, flowing through his veins. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to feel his lips, his tongue, to taste his skin….

Something woke him. Or someone. His skin felt hot and sweaty, lust ran sticky in his blood. He could only hope the bloody angel had woken in the same uncomfortable, unfamiliar state and almost called him to check. 

~

They met in St James Park early the next morning. Aziraphale brought bread for the ducks, Crowley bought coffee. 

‘I read somewhere that you shouldn’t feed bread to ducks,’ he murmured. Aziraphale ignored him. He hung back, letting the angel get a few steps ahead before he asked, ‘Do you remember Eden?’

He stopped in his tracks. ‘Of course I do.’

‘I dreamt of it last night. Of you and I.’

Aziraphale’s feigned surprise was transparent. He wasn’t fooling Crowley. ‘Did you?’ 

‘You know I did.’

‘How would I know what you dreamt of last night?’

‘Becauzzz you were there,’ it took a great deal of effort to keep his tone civil.

Aziraphale turned slowly. ‘I couldn’t possibly have been, my dear. I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’

~

He spent an hour watching porn before he went to bed. 

The sun was barely over the horizon when Aziraphale telephoned. He said, ‘you did that on purpose,’ and Crowley laughed, a little bitterly. ‘You’d better come over, don’t you think?’

~

Aziraphale made tea. 

‘So we’re dreaming the same dreams?’

‘We’re sharing the same dreams.’ Crowley corrected him with a frown. ‘Actually, I think that’s a song lyric.’ He sat, slouched and despondent, in a high backed armchair. He’d had to move a pile of first editions to sit down. 

‘Well, not that I want a demon in my head, even if it is you….’

‘What about me?! Do you think I want an angel in mine? Even if it is you.’ He parodied Aziraphale’s words before his brain had really processed the way he’d said them. He sat up a little straighter. ‘What do you mean, ‘even if it’s me’?’

‘I just mean, if I had to have a demon in my head, you’d be the one I’d chose.’

‘Am I in your head?’

Aziraphale tipped his head thoughtfully to one side. ‘Can you hear what I’m thinking right now?’ 

Crowley concentrated, really hard. All he could hear was the infernal ticking of a grandfather clock he’d never been able to find, and under it the scurrying of a million tiny feet. ‘No. Can you tell what I’m thinking?’

The angel smiled. ‘I can take a fairly well educated guess, but that’s all it would be.’

Crowley didn’t rise to the bait. He rarely did. ‘I still think this is down to Adam. I think we should go and see him.’

‘Is that even allowed?’ 

‘I am sort of his godfather. Or... Satan father.’ He hesitated. 

‘Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?’

‘It’s not really a strength of ours, family.’

‘Which is ironic when you think of how much it does for your side.’

Crowley nodded his agreement and sat up, reaching for the dainty China tea cup. He brightened up a little. ‘Especially at Christmas.’

‘Yes, it’s a strange time, Christmas.’ The tea made him feel better. Or maybe it was the angel’s company. It had worked in the past. ‘All right, my dear,’ Aziraphale conceded. ‘If you want to go and visit Adam, that’s what we will do.’

~

Luckily they were saved from going to the house. The Bentley’s open windows, and Crowley’s uncharacteristic sedate speed through the village, meant that they caught the sound of laughter coming from the ruins of an old farmhouse on the edge of the misty autumn fields. Crowley parked up and they headed for the place. The Them were running through the long grass, shouting nonsense to one another. Playing a game adults were never meant to understand, never mind two beings as old as time.

Adam was perched on a low, crumbling wall, with Dog lying at his feet.

He called out, ‘Hallo,’ as they approached, and Crowley waved. They stopped a respectful distance from him. Both of them resisted the urge to bow.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ Crowley managed, stutteringly. ‘We just… we wanted a quick… chat about something.’

Adam beckoned them closer. He looked happy. They took three steps and stopped. ’I told you, I know what the two of you did to try to help. What you’ve always done. You’re in no danger.’

‘No. Yes. I mean, thank you… for that. It’s just… we seem to be… .’ 

He honestly couldn’t seem to say it. So Aziraphale did, ’Sharing dreams,’ he said simply.

’Are you sure you’re not just dreaming of the same thing?’ Adam asked, which Crowley was fairly sure wasn’t the same thing at all. ‘Why do either of you sleep anyway? You don’t need to.’

‘I don’t, often,’ the angel clarified. ‘But he likes to.’

‘Shouldn’t you be spending your time doing better, more productive things?’

‘I’m not sure anyone wants me spending any more time doing things,’ Crowley pointed out. ‘I’ve done a lot of damage over the years.’ He tried not to sound too proud.

Adam smiled. He looked just like a perfectly normal eleven year old boy. But he didn’t really sound like one. ‘It seems to me that the two of you together balance things out. We do our own damage, don’t we? People, I mean. You two… you’re just two beings in a world full of billions of us. You’re the rarity, the endangered species. You’ve done your jobs over the years, isn’t there anything you’d like to do that isn’t inherently evil?’ he looked pointedly at Crowley. ‘Or inherently good?’ That was for Aziraphale.

‘We have superiors who expect results,’ the angel pointed out, almost a plea for sense. 

But Adam shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about them. They’ll leave you alone for a while.’

Crowley was confused. ’So… you’re asking us what we’d do if we could do… anything?’ He tried to think of something. ‘I’m a demon. I already do everything I want. It’s in the job description.’

‘Do you?’ Adam looked at Aziraphale. ‘What about you?’

‘Oh, well, I wouldn’t… I mean, I couldn’t do anything really awful. I wouldn’t want to.’

‘What about something very human?’

‘Well, I already enjoy the finer things in life. If I’m being honest, I probably should have been brought to task about certain things long ago. Gluttony for one. I do love a good meal, with a nice bottle of wine, and a good brandy at the end. And then there’s Pride; take my books….’

Crowley listened to him babble. It amused him a little to see how nervous his old friend - only friend - was in the presence of Adam. Not to say the feeling wasn’t mutual, to a degree. But Aziraphale didn’t tend to babble unless he was under extreme duress. He was usually so composed, so unflappable. A constant in Crowley’s life since, well, since the beginning. Of everything. The one constant. Not predictable but definitely dependable. And the realisation that Adam was hinting at something specific didn’t so much dawn on him as settle slowly upon him like the slow rise of the sun up over the horizon.

He took a step closer to Aziraphale and murmured into the angel’s ear, ‘What about lust?’

Aziraphale stopped talking and pulled himself up ramrod straight, turning his head to stare at Crowley with wide eyes. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘He’s talking about…. Never mind.’ He put one hand to the small of the angel’s back and smiled at Adam. ‘We’ll be off then. Thanks for the… advice.’ He paused, ignoring Aziraphale’s confused glance and his little squeak of surprise. ‘Your… father won’t be hearing about this… will he? I mean, your real father.’

Adam shook his head. ‘We don’t speak,’ he said, sounding impossibly older than he looked. 

Crowley nodded. He thought that was possibly a bad thing, but he didn’t want to think too hard about it. To Aziraphale, he said, ‘Come on. We need to talk.’

‘Do we? What about?’ But he let himself be steered back towards the Bentley. ‘What just happened?’

‘It’s not Adam. The dream thing. It’s us.’

~

Azriaphale kept asking questions which Crowley refused to answer until they got back to London. He drove to Soho, because it was so much easier, and he knew the angel would be happier in his own space. 

They sort of spilled into the bookshop, Aziraphale shedding his gloves, and coat, and scarf as he went. The items dropped, neatly, to the nearest flat surface. Crowley watched, faintly amused. 

‘You can’t even manage untidy when you’re trying to be,’ he pointed out, as the angel produced a bottle of something old and strong and possibly more expensive than Crowley’s flat, along with a couple of tumblers. He sloshed out two generous measures, not a drop missing the glasses, and handed Crowley his drink, knocking his own back as Crowley took an appreciative sip.

‘In Satan’s name, Zira, calm down will you?’

Aziraphale was suddenly in his personal space, more flustered than Crowley could ever remember seeing him. ‘What did you mean, it’s us? How can it be us? More likely you, trying to tempt me, the way you’ve been trying to tempt me for the last six thousand years.’

‘Now, hold on.’ He took a literal and metaphorical step back. ‘I’ve never tried that on you. We’re friends. We’ve always been friends.’ He felt a little hurt, if he was being honest with himself. 

Aziraphale’s expression was one of astonishment. ‘How can you say that? You never stop! It’s always expensive drinks, and exquisite food, and good… very good company.’

Very few times had Crowley been rendered speechless. He always knew what to say, or what not to say but said it anyway. ‘You… do like me.’ He felt a little ridiculous, like he was stating the obvious, but anything else seemed presumptuous. 

The angel stared at him. His expression changed from anger to confusion, as if the outburst a second ago had never happened. ‘Like you?’ He sounded dismayed at the idea that Crowley could think anything but. ‘Of course I like you! My boy, I love you dearly.’ The sudden stabbing in his chest made Crowley wonder if his human form was having a heart attack. He’d read somewhere about a sharp pain and shortness of breath. ‘My dear, are you quite all right? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have shouted.’ Aziraphale put a hand on his arm and directed him to a chair, crouching down with both hands folder on Crowley’s knee.

‘I’m….’ Crowley found it impossible to tear his eyes from the angelic face. ‘No one’s ever said… that to me.’

Aziraphale smiled beatifically. ‘I’m an angel, my darling. Love is what I do.’

‘But I’m a demon!’ Hidden behind the shade of his sunglasses, he closed his eyes. They felt… wet. ‘You can’t….’ He shook his head. ‘I’m literally not worthy of it.’

A gentle hand stroked his hair, the edge of a warm finger ghostIng over the top of his ear. 

‘Quite frankly, you’re a terrible demon. You helped save the world. You stood at my side and told Satan to… fuck right off, if you’ll excuse my language. I’ve never been so proud to call myself your friend than I was at that moment, and every moment following it.’

He kept his eyes closed when he asked, ‘Is that what we are? Friends?’

If was Azriaphale’s turn to sound hurt. ’Are we not friends, after everything we’ve been through?’

‘I didn’t mean…. ‘ He shook his head as he opened his eyes and slipped his sunglasses ungraciously from his face. ‘What I meant to say was, is that all we are?’

The angel sat back on his heels. Crowley wondered what he’d done with his glass. ‘What else?’ His tone was innocent enough, but sometimes - and when he put his mind to it - he could be a better manipulator than any demon. 

‘We’re dreaming the same dreams, Zira,’ he pointed out softly. ‘The last one was of you doing something quite profoundly wonderful to my left nipple.’

‘That was all you, and you know it.’

He hesitated, but if they were going to build something lasting, it needed to be on a foundation of truth. ‘I’ll give you that one. But what about the night before? The garden of Eden. You almost kissing me.’

‘And here was I thinking it was been you who almost kissed me.’ But he’d turned a lovely shade of pink.

‘How about,’ Crowley shifted forward, ‘we kiss each other?’

It wasn’t spectacular in human terms, a mere touch of dry lips to dry lips. But for an angel and a demon who’d been on earth for six thousand years, who’d known each other for the longest of times, it was a tilting of the world’s axis, a change in an ancient paradigm. It might even have been against the rules, had anyone who cared been watching.

Azriaphale was the first to draw away, to lick his lips. Crowley flicked the tip of his forked tongue over the place where the kiss lingered. And the angel said, ‘I think we can do better than that, don’t you?’

Crowley wasn’t sure the chair could hold both of them. The chair didn’t seem too certain either. It creaked as Aziraphale straddled Crowley’s lap, pressing his knees into the narrow gaps either side of the demon’s thighs. A stray thought convinced the chair it needed to be bigger, and an unstable pile of books fell over, knocked over by the sudden existence of a two seater sofa.

There was something inevitably heavenly about having an angel squirming in his arms, making the most of the oh-so human bodies they inhabited. Of all the earthly delights he’d indulged over the millennia, this was the best, the most exquisite, the one he knew he would crave from this moment onwards. 

He found the strength to grip the angel’s shoulders and ease him up, just enough to look into the blazing blue eyes, brighter than the sky and deeper than the sea. ‘This needs to be for keeps, Aziraphale. This can’t be one of our games.’

The expression that met his anxious statement was one of pure joy. ‘My beloved demon, don’t you know, you’re already the one thing I could never be without?’ He touched his lips to the tip of Crowley’s nose, an odd benediction, but it felt fitting somehow. 

‘The feeling is mutual, I assure you,’ he murmured. It was as much as he could give, and move than he’d ever given before. Aziraphale didn’t seem to mind, in fact, he seemed to take it as permission granted to launch a renewed assault on the sensitive place just below his jawline. 

His last conscious thought, for a long time, was why people tried so hard to get to heaven when this was what they could get on earth. As long as he lived, he’d never understand human beings, but the again, he really didn’t have to.


End file.
